The 2014 Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education and Social Development (SWSD), Melbourne, Australia, 9-12 July 2014, p. 30 How to Cite?

Abstract

Background: With the longer lifespan of the persons with Intelectual Disabilties (PWID), they have a
higher chance of outliving their parents. The los of parents among PWID is intricate because of the
exceptionaly intimate parent-child relationship. Yet, PWID are often considered as incapable to
understand the concept of death, thus do not have the abilty to grieve. Aim: The study is to explore PWID’s level of understanding of death. Methodology: Persons with mild to moderate level of ID, who are service users of the Rehabiltation
services of Tung Wah Group Hospitals, are the participants in this study. A stratifed random sampling
aproach is adopted. Data were colected through an in-depth interview, guided by a standardized
protocol. In particular, one of thre vignetes describing death-related incidents was used to ases
the understanding of five dimensions of death: causality, inevitabilty, finality, non-functionality, and
universality. Self-care abilty, bereavement experience and demographics were measured as wel.
Findings: 104 participants joined the study, with 60 having had bereavement experiences. More than
half of the participants showed a ful understanding towards the ireversibilty and non-functionality
dimensions respectively. Around a third showed a ful understanding towards the universality and
causality dimensions respectively. 31.7% of participants showed a ful understanding to the
inevitabilty dimension. Gender and self-care abilty sems to have minimal efect in understanding the
diferent dimension of conceptualization of death. Bereavement experiences were found to be
corelated signifcantly with nearly al the dimensions (χ
2
ranged from 4.48 to 6.03, p < 0.05), except
for ireversibilty.
Conclusions: Though not al PWID can understand the concept of death, a signifcant group of
participants, even asesed to be with moderate grade of intelectual disabilty, showed a ful
understanding towards diferent dimensions of death conceptualization. It definitely refutes the
hypothesis of persons with ID not understanding death.

Description

Conference Theme: Promoting Social and Economic Equality: Responses from Social Work and Social DevelopmentConcurent Sesion: 11E

The 2014 Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education and Social Development (SWSD), Melbourne, Australia, 9-12 July 2014, p. 30

en_US

dc.identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10722/201809

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dc.description

Conference Theme: Promoting Social and Economic Equality: Responses from Social Work and Social Development

-

dc.description

Concurent Sesion: 11E

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dc.description.abstract

Background: With the longer lifespan of the persons with Intelectual Disabilties (PWID), they have a
higher chance of outliving their parents. The los of parents among PWID is intricate because of the
exceptionaly intimate parent-child relationship. Yet, PWID are often considered as incapable to
understand the concept of death, thus do not have the abilty to grieve. Aim: The study is to explore PWID’s level of understanding of death. Methodology: Persons with mild to moderate level of ID, who are service users of the Rehabiltation
services of Tung Wah Group Hospitals, are the participants in this study. A stratifed random sampling
aproach is adopted. Data were colected through an in-depth interview, guided by a standardized
protocol. In particular, one of thre vignetes describing death-related incidents was used to ases
the understanding of five dimensions of death: causality, inevitabilty, finality, non-functionality, and
universality. Self-care abilty, bereavement experience and demographics were measured as wel.
Findings: 104 participants joined the study, with 60 having had bereavement experiences. More than
half of the participants showed a ful understanding towards the ireversibilty and non-functionality
dimensions respectively. Around a third showed a ful understanding towards the universality and
causality dimensions respectively. 31.7% of participants showed a ful understanding to the
inevitabilty dimension. Gender and self-care abilty sems to have minimal efect in understanding the
diferent dimension of conceptualization of death. Bereavement experiences were found to be
corelated signifcantly with nearly al the dimensions (χ
2
ranged from 4.48 to 6.03, p < 0.05), except
for ireversibilty.
Conclusions: Though not al PWID can understand the concept of death, a signifcant group of
participants, even asesed to be with moderate grade of intelectual disabilty, showed a ful
understanding towards diferent dimensions of death conceptualization. It definitely refutes the
hypothesis of persons with ID not understanding death.

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dc.language

eng

en_US

dc.relation.ispartof

Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education and Social Development, SWSD 2014